Sep 15 Market Finds plus a word about photography

Antiquing, thrifting, or scavenging - whatever you want to call it - there is a cornucopia of treasures to buy here in Indiana. It's not picked over like it is in some other places. There are antique stores with thrift store prices dotting the storefront space in every small town. These towns long ago ceased being able to support the more practical business that once filled these main street venues. But now there are antique stores as far as the eye can see. There is also a huge auctioneer culture here with auctions happening virtually every night of the week. And then there are the flea markets and many garage sales popping up every weekend. I have a good time going these things - especially since I have a house to furnish. I'll share with you a few things I picked up recently.

A beautiful flow blue bowl. I love flow blue and try to collect it whenever I can. The crackling to the glaze and the bleeding almost watercolor-ish looking colbolt blue designs tell me this bowl might be from the 1800's. I picked it up in Cambridge City for 10 dollars.

I love collecting these Italian basket weave ceramics. My rule of thumb when scavenging is to buy anything made in Italy. These look like they may be candy dishes meant for confetti - the colorful sugar covered almonds used to celebrate at weddings.

Here is a fairly large hand painted jug made in Mexico. Like the made in Italy rule- I would definitely also buy anything made in Mexico. Especially hand painted. A little store in Knightstown let this one go for three dollars!

I love this sweet little handmade guitar that I got for Tony to play with. Much cheaper than a Ukulele, but it has a similar effect for a three year old.

I can't believe you can actually tune it with these little hand carved wooden pegs. It makes a Joyful Sound! Actually a really funny, weird sound, but I like it.

One of my personal goals for this blog is to teach myself more about photography. If only I had majored in photography in college instead of the fairly impractical thing I chose! I've tried to learn things about photography my entire life and I've often been frustrated. I was always blaming my camera or my timing for weak results. For a long time I was frustrated because the LCD screen on my Nikon has a bluish cast and I thought the LCD screen indicated my real results! Finally when a photographer friend pointed that obvious fact out to me I learned to ignore the LCD screen and to wait until the photos were uploaded to really judge them.

These still life photos I just took were all taken on an iPhone on a set up I threw together quickly. But I am really excited with the results! I think when I get the right materials together and by being more patient and doing a little editing, I can really start learn something. I created the set up below after reading this article on A Beautiful Mess. What a Perfect article - it was exactly the information I was looking for in a way I could really quickly and easily understand it. Refreshing after I've spent so much time feeling inept in photographer's forums which are usually super technical.

Here is my setup before I realized I needed to get those unsightly sun beams out of there.

Here I threw my friend's painting over the sunbeam casting light. The set up includes a velvet coat over a couch cushion as a black flag (something to absorb light). I angled my camera properly toward the subject and was able to get some decent results.

I'm totally new on this photography journey but my takeaway so far is that photography has less to do with your camera and instead everything to do with knowing the art of harnessing and controlling light. When you see a situation you want to capture you have to know what miracles your camera can perform in the circumstances and also what miracles it will Not be able to perform. The human eye can take in and appreciate so much more nuance of what is seen than a camera will ever be able to - so you must be aware of the camera's limitations and adjust and manipulate both your equipment and your light situation accordingly. Then you may get close to what you want to achieve.